Wedding cakes are beautiful masterpieces, and it can take a long time to find the perfect design. You may soon notice that wedding cakes seem excessively expensive if you’re planning a wedding. So, why are wedding cakes so expensive?
Wedding cakes are so expensive because they’re time-consuming to create, their designs are intricate, and they need to serve many people. Wedding cakes (especially fondant cakes) also involve using many ingredients and accessories, and the final cake assembly is challenging.
In this article, I’ll take you through the reasons behind wedding cakes’ high price, and I’ll give you some tips on saving money on your wedding cake.
Reasons Wedding Cakes Are So Expensive
Your wedding cake is one of the essential elements of your wedding and will form the centerpiece of your dessert table. N Choosing the right one is important as you’ll remember it for many years.
Like many aspects of a wedding, the cake can be notoriously expensive, but there are various reasons behind this. Before you settle on a wedding cake design and decorator, you should be aware of the following:
1. Wedding Cakes Are Time Consuming To Create
When creating a wedding cake, it’s not simply a matter of baking a cake and frosting it. Most people aren’t aware of the work involved as the decorator needs to create an artistic masterpiece according to the couple’s design requirements.
This can involve making and placing sugar flowers to create a beautiful pattern, hand painting designs, and using intricate frosting techniques that incorporate many steps to complete. It can take a wedding cake decorator several hours, or even days to bake and construct the cake, decorate it, and place the final touches.
Decorating techniques such as sugar flowers, fondant details and chocolate decorating elements are very time consuming, and are often begun days in advance due to the time they take to complete.
Some wedding cakes have several tiers, with each tier being a large cake on its own; they can take many hours to prepare due to their size.
Like all professionals, wedding cake decorators will charge for their time, and if you opt for a bespoke cake design, you can expect to pay more. The decorator needs to create a new template with bespoke cakes, and you’re paying for their experience and craftsmanship.
2. Their Designs Can Be Intricate
Most people don’t give wedding cake trends much thought, but there are new wedding cake styles each year. Intricately-designed wedding cakes tend to have more accessories and design elements, increasing the cake’s price.
Wedding cake artists need to keep up to date with the latest cake trends and sometimes learn new techniques. They often attend courses and buy expensive literature to be able to perform innovative decorating and frosting techniques.
Part of the reason wedding cakes are so costly is that wedding cake decorators are specialist food artists and highly sought-after catering professionals. Not all bakers can create wedding cakes, as it is a complex skill that is developed over many years.
Most wedding cakes have intricate designs and involve using several accessories, including:
- Ribbon
- Boxes
- Cake boards
- Decorations such as rings, bells, hearts, and the bride and groom cake toppers
- Dowels and cake tier construction accessories
- Lace appliques
- Handmade sugar flowers
3. Wedding Cakes Must Serve Many Guests
A wedding is usually the largest event you will ever plan, and the guest list may be the biggest you’ll ever need to deal with. This means your wedding cake will be larger than any other dessert you’ve ever bought. The baker needs to use more ingredients and spend more time creating the cake, another reason for the high cost.
Wedding cake decorators can guide you on how many cake servings will come from each of their cake, and how many portions you need. Often an “80% of guests” rule of thumb is used.
4. They Require Many Ingredients and Accessories
Reputable wedding cake creators typically use high-quality ingredients for their cakes because these make the cake taste and look better.
Your final wedding cake price will depend on the type of cake and accessories you choose, with some being more expensive than others.
The following wedding cake ingredients can increase the cost of a cake above a simple frosted cake:
- Fresh fruit, particularly if using out-of-season ingredients
- Flavored fillings such as Lemon curd or mousse
- Alcohol flavorings
- Ganache using high quality chocolate
- Gold or silver leaf
- Sugar flowers
- Couverture chocolate decorations
- Real buttercream
5. Fondant Wedding Cakes Must Be Denser
Many traditional wedding cake designs include fondant, a smooth pliable frosting type that covers cakes. Fondant creates a smooth, uniform, and neat finish, but it is naturally heavy, and the underlying cake must be able to support it.
Fondant is also popular with and preferred by most wedding cake decorators as the covering is easier to decorate with various design elements such as colors and patterns than other types of icing.
If you choose a fondant wedding cake, it’s best to opt for a dense cake such as mud cake or pound cake, which are more expensive than a regular light sponge as they use a higher quantity of ingredients.
6. Wedding Cake Testing Is Factored Into the Price
When looking for the perfect wedding cake, many couples visit wedding cake shops where they test different kinds of wedding cake.
The wedding cake shop usually bakes a wide range of cake samples in small batches, which can be costly in terms of ingredients, time, and energy.
While couples won’t typically pay for wedding cake testing, the baker needs to account for the cost somewhere, and will usually factor it into the wedding cake price.
7. Final Cake Assembly Is Challenging
Single-layered wedding cakes are easy to transport if they’re not too large, but if your wedding cake has multiple tiers, your wedding cake decorator will probably need to construct it on-site as it will be too difficult to transport.
Incorporated into the final wedding cake price will be the transport, time, and fuel costs for the baker to travel to your wedding venue and construct the cake.
How To Save Money on a Wedding Cake
Now that I’ve explained why wedding cakes are so expensive, you might wonder how you can save money on yours. If you’re willing to think out of the box and get creative, you could save a lot of money.
Here are some interesting ways to save money on your wedding cake:
Forget the Fruitcake
Traditional wedding cakes are fruitcakes with a fondant or marzipan frosting, which are costly to bake due to their many ingredients. Although the alcohol in fruitcake keeps it fresh for a long time, many people don’t like it, so you might consider opting for a tastier or more cost-effective option.
Consider a Naked Cake
Naked cakes are a modern and minimalist concept and have minimal frosting. When stacking the wedding cake layers, your baker will use a filling to make them stick together and follow with a very light layer of frosting and a few decorations. This gives the cake a raw and interesting appearance.
If you like the look of a naked cake and are trying to save money on your wedding expenses, it’s an excellent option as these cakes are usually significantly cheaper than traditional ones.
Go for Smaller Portions
Changing the portion size is a great way to make your cake go further. Particularly if you’ll be serving other desserts you can consider whether you want to serve small “finger slice” portions or larger “dessert slice” portions, which will change the size of cake you need and therefore the cost.
Below is a handy guide demonstrating the number of Finger or Dessert portions you can expect from each cake size:
| Round Cake | Round Cake | Square Cake | Square Cake | |
| Cake Size Inches | Finger Portions | Dessert Portions | Finger Portions | Dessert Portions |
| 4 | 10 | 5 | 15 | 8 |
| 6 | 20 | 12 | 25 | 17 |
| 8 | 40 | 24 | 50 | 30 |
| 10 | 60 | 38 | 80 | 48 |
| 12 | 80 | 58 | 110 | 70 |
If you’re having a multiple tiered cake you can add the tier portions together for the total portions you can serve.
Buy a Grocery Store Cake and Decorate It
Is your wedding cake preference simple and understated? If so, consider buying a sheet cake from a grocery store and save yourself a lot of money. This may not sound like the classiest or most special option, but it’s an attractive option when you consider the money you could save.
Most grocery store bakeries sell simple sheet cakes in vanilla and chocolate, and many offer basic frosting services. You could ask the grocery store’s bakery to decorate it with your chosen message, or you could frost it yourself and add some unique accessories to make it look special.
Another option is to buy a smaller decorated cake from a wedding cake decorator for cutting and photos, and having a larger plain frosted sheet cake “in the back” to serve to guests. Usually your guests will never notice they aren’t eating the decorated wedding cake!
Make Your Own Cake
Are you a keen baker with a flair for creating beautifully-frosted cakes? If so, you might consider making your own wedding cake and saving yourself a fortune.
Since the days leading up to the wedding are likely to be busy and stressful, think about making a cake which you can prepare and freeze in advance. Alternatively, if you have a friend or family member who is adept at baking cakes, you could ask them to give one to you as a wedding gift.
If you do choose to make your own cake, or have someone make it for you, make sure you consider how you’ll transport and set it up on your wedding day. We’ve explained some easy steps in our article here to make sure your cake makes it to the venue in one piece.
Choose a Design With Cost-Effective Ingredients
Some wedding cake designs are more expensive than others because their ingredients and accessories are more expensive.
For instance, fondant is more expensive than buttercream frosting, and using real flowers instead of sugar flowers can save money. Fresh fruit in season can also look beautiful on a wedding cake and decrease the cost.
Don’t Get a Groom’s Cake
In some regions and cultures, the wedding couple chooses a wedding cake and a groom’s cake, which are displayed together on the dessert table.
The groom’s cake is specially designed to reflect the groom’s personal interests, such as a favorite football team or hobby. Groom’s cakes can be very colorful, intricate, and expensive, so you might consider not getting one as you’ll have a wedding cake, anyway.
Think Local
If you’re using a wedding cake shop located far from your wedding venue, you may pay more due to the cake transport costs. Consider using a local wedding cake shop to keep the wedding cake cost down and support local artists in your community.
Choose a Wedding Cake Alternative
If you and your partner aren’t cake fans, or aren’t cake cost fans, but you’d still like a wedding cake for symbolic purposes, why not consider a wedding cake alternative?
Wedding cake alternatives can save you a lot of money, can be easier to prepare, and add uniqueness to your wedding. Keep in mind you’ll need to add the purchase and construction of the cake to the “To Do” list on the day before or day of the wedding.
Here are some examples of fun wedding cake alternatives:
- Cupcake tower
- Donut pile (consider choosing ones with frosting in your wedding’s color scheme)
- Profiterole tower
- Sushi tower
- Mini cheesecake tower
- Cake pop tree
- Cheese wheel cake
Some couples opt for a dessert table instead of a cake, including sweet and baked treats. Instead of buying the desserts, you might consider asking a few guests to bring their signature desserts in place of a gift.
Final Thoughts
Like most wedding elements, the cake can be very expensive. Wedding cakes are so expensive because you’re paying for the baker’s expertise, time, and design experience. The baker must also incorporate other things into the final cost, such as transporting the cake, cake testing, and accessories.
You can save money on your wedding cake by avoiding fruitcakes, making one yourself, or considering a naked or square cake. You could also buy one from a grocery store bakery and decorate it yourself, or opt for a wedding cake alternative, like a sushi or cupcake tower.
Are you still deciding how much you want to spend on your wedding? Our article here will show you 5 simple steps to decide your wedding budget.